As citizens of a liberal capitalist society, our desires constitute an amalgam of individualistic, competitive, and acquisitive yearnings. Consequently, we tend to see ourselves as individuals destined to compete for scarce resources, striving to fulfill a range of personal desires for sex, wealth, status, or security. Desire is largely viewed as a matter of self-interest expressed within the realms of work, politics, and even love. Informed by a capitalist sensibility, desire is often reduced to yearnings for an accumulation of private property, both material and symbolic. Even matters of spirituality, meaning, and aesthetics tend to be translated into quests to ‘acquire’ personal truth and beauty. Rarely do we view desire as a yearning to enhance a social whole greater than our selves, a desire to enrich the larger community.
Audre Lorde to her students during a poetry workshop, as shown in A Litany for Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde (1996) dir. by Ada Gay Griffin and Michelle Parkerson
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